Darksabers, Please

Versions

This deck started out as something of a joke because I saw the spoilers for the Darksaber around the same time I got my hands on Luke Skywalker - Jedi Knight (joined around the full release of Legacies). RotJ Luke, with his green lightsaber, is a sick Star Wars character, taking some of his scrappy, youthful optimism and tempering it with the experience and training that came from the break he had after failing to defeat Vader. That aside, Luke seems like a decent choice to use the Darksaber, as his high base melee sides without costs and card drawing ability help get you to it as quickly as possible, since theoretically you're really blowing through your deck and you can't pull it with Lightsaber Pull. The melee sides obviously provide synergy with the Darksaber's, and the other sides Luke has means rolling that sick focus side on the Darksaber could really result in some huge damage. While we wait for the Darksaber to be real, I've been experimenting with this deck and it's wonderfully entertaining. Not really tier 1, but it can do some silly things when given the chance.

I have many thoughts and have tried to condense as much as possible, but I want to apologize in advance for the wall.

Ezra Bridger - Force-sensitive Thief was probably my favorite choice of who I had at the time to build with, because you actually get four dice out of these two despite Luke's cost, and there are so few situations where players are likely to target him first (unless they roll lethal in the first round, which has happened!) so his small health pool is decent. His specials help earn you the resources to pay for all the weapons and occasionally can roll the 1/+2 sides, but most of the time the poor guy has two blanks with the +2 range. Being able to use Blue character only weapons is also pretty nice. I've considered trying the Wookiee Warrior for more health, or Anakin Skywalker - Podracing Prodigy for even more resources when he releases, but I'm fairly satisfied with Ezra overall. (Truce into Ezra special is so much fun!)

Let's talk about the cards this deck uses because there are some weird cards in here by tier 1 standards. We're going to start with the Supports.

Supports:

Luke's Protection was initially put in as an anti-mill mechanic for Luke's ability, but it's turned into my favorite card this list has. If you can draw it early, it's a guaranteed two shields a round (Play and top deck, activate Luke and draw it again, repeat), which cannot be understated when damage is flying at Luke faster than you can spot Ezra to use Easy Pickings (my copies are in another deck right now, alas). Alternatively, you can use Luke's ability to just plow through your deck if you have a terrible starting hand, but I really do enjoy the pattern this card gives you. It turns this deck into a super slow deck when compared to other "Big+Little" decks because that is FIVE ACTIONS, but my Hero vehicles style feels right at home here.

Defensive Teaching was added after a few games because if you can get two Shoto Lightsabers on Luke, you're swimming in shields and any way to ramp up the special on Obi-Wan's Lightsaber is great. It is unfortunate Ezra does not benefit from this, but most of the time the game is over if Luke dies anyway.
Sometimes I stay up late at night thinking about what the second copy could do for me, but I get the feeling it's not enough to make it worth using two Defensive Teachings.

Upgrades:

I only have one copy of Heirloom Lightsaber currently and I refuse to shell out the cash for two Ancient Lightsaber, so in terms of damage-dealing weapons, this is the best configuration I can squeeze out. Force Speed is absent because I will likewise not pay for that card and as stated, this deck is pretty slow and I'm not sure if Force Speed would change that. I won't get into it here but I feel like Force Speed is a suboptimal way to augment your deck if you can't constantly chain its special into big plays, and this deck has basically none of that.

As stated, 2 Shoto Lightsaber / Obi-Wan Kenobi's Lightsaber is currently the game plan for Luke. Stack shields forever, hope for the Obi special, and/or just hit big damage or shields for future rounds. Luke Skywalker's Lightsaber and Rey's Lightsaber are there in the event you can't get to a Lightsaber Pull or one of the critical upgrades early on, or for those situations where you have extra resources and can invest in Ezra, otherwise I would have two copies of Obi-Wan's. Heirloom to help with death overwriting, and the Vibrocutlass is my current "discard to reroll" upgrade that will get swapped for the Darksaber when it is released in all its glory. I have a feeling the deck's playstyle is going to be pretty different when I actually have that card, but I am also excited for Luke Skywalker's Lightning Rod because that's going to give me even more options for shield control...

I almost forgot! Fast Hands is an experimental card for Ezra I recently added, since so often I hit the specials on him and my opponent will then quickly use their resources. Could be a monster in the hypothetical Ezra v The Entire Galaxy situations endgame, but I've not gotten to use it much yet. It likely won't stay, but it's a nice zero-cost card that could influence an opponent to target Ezra instead of Luke.

Events:

Mitigation for as cheap as possible is the key. I'm experimenting with some weird cards like Hold On! (to be combined with Caution to move shields around as I please) which means fitting in cards such as It Binds All Things, Close Quarters Assault, Mind Trick, and other Blue melee staples is pretty difficult, but I get to use most cards in my deck during the average game simply because Luke forces me to go through them. I also consider a Lightsaber Pull the same kind of slot as an upgrade, because it either lets me play an upgrade or becomes a reroll card; with essentially 1/3 of my deck upgrades, I hope to have a nice suite of removal cards to round out the remainder of the deck I will likely see every game. As mentioned, I would potentially run Easy Pickings in this if I had more than two copies, but Hidden Motive, Unbreakable (great in the midgame when you have tons of shields!), and Electroshock work well enough, especially because minimizing spot Yellow cards with Ezra's tiny health pool is something one must consider. Heightened Awareness into Obi-Wan's special for four unblockable damage is a great play, and I wish I had room for a second copy.

I just took out my copies of Guard for other things, because even though Luke's character dice can make that card sing, it's imperative to push out damage with Luke because Ezra often contributes zero damage before upgrades.

Overall, I think about this deck constantly despite it being silly conceptually, but it does decently well in the small local meta in which I participate. I'm not keeping track of win rate, but I always have fun playing it, and that's the ultimate checkbox for a successful Destiny deck in my book.

@KingD21 I had no idea that was something you could do, but it makes perfect sense. I actually had those in and took them out, I should probably go back to them. Thanks for the advice!

@Ramin-2D2 I'll try it out on TTS and probably just take out Fast Hands for it. In the end, you're probably correct. I'm just scared to shell out that kind of cash for a single card haha, still pretty new to CCGs in general. Thanks for commenting!

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